


Pumpkin Soup

by abitchistrying



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Crack, Everybody Lives, Fix-It, For HighKingFen's Trick or Treat Gift Exchange 2019, Halloween, Happy Halloween!, I hope you like it!!!, Just lil ol' me and a handful of jellybeans against the world for this fic, Not Beta'd, Post-Canon Fix-It, for @face--the--strange on tumblr, not edited
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-09
Updated: 2019-11-09
Packaged: 2021-01-15 18:29:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,587
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21257702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/abitchistrying/pseuds/abitchistrying
Summary: [Excess pieces of pumpkin can be roasted to eat as-is, or pureed and stored for later use in a pie or sauce.]...In which Margo finds out that the most complicated problems can have the simplest solutions, and brings Julia and Kady along for the ride. (Insert "Power of Three" reference here.) Or; in which Quentin has no ball to go to, but every resource to get there.





	Pumpkin Soup

**Author's Note:**

  * For [facethestrange](https://archiveofourown.org/users/facethestrange/gifts).

***

“I’m sorry, _what the fuck_ did you just say?” Kady leaned forward from where she was seated on Julia’s bed to stare Margo down where she stood in the doorway. Margo was wearing a calf-length, lacy, black dress with a slit up the thigh and long, sheer sleeves, along with a pair of intimidatingly-high, heeled boots, and oxblood lipstick painted over the lips of an expression that conveyed slowly-thinning patience.

The sound of a chair rolling around the room halted as Julia came to rest right in front of Margo in order to look up at her. Margo dropped her hand from where it was still holding on to the doorknob and set it on her hip, while she tossed an old Bergdorf Goodman bag by the footboard of the bed with her other hand and looked back and forth between Kady and Julia, “I said, get your asses in gear.”

Julia leaned back and the chair made a small, squeaking noise with the sudden addition of weight on the seat’s spine. She squinted up at Margo, “I think Kady means the other thing you said?” Margo scowled and waved a hand at Julia, who slowly rolled backwards to let Margo into the room, “I know what she meant.” Margo leaned on Julia’s desk and sighed heavily, shoulders dropping with some unseen weight. She met Kady’s slightly-worried, but mostly-cautious, gaze and held it fast with her own, “We’re going to cast The Great Pumpkin.”

After a long and painful moment of incredulous silence, Kady gave a short shake of her head, “Nope, that didn’t help at all, come again?” She narrowed her eyes and cocked her head in disbelief, “Did you just say _Great Pumpkin?”_ She looked like she couldn’t tell if Margo was fucking with her or not, “Like Charlie Brown’s?” Her voice was dripping with derision.

Margo’s eye twitched at the ruder-than-necessary response, but she refrained from retaliating. They were friends now. Friends didn’t murder friends for a having a healthy dose of skepticism. A healthy, life-preserving dose of skepticism. “No.” Margo was _not_ fucking with Kady, but Margo knew that if someone were telling her what she was telling Julia and Kady now, she would have honest-to-goddess thought they might have been _seriously_ tripping.

From the front of the window, and in between where Kady was perched on the bed and where Margo was standing at the desk, came a small, disappointed “oh” from Julia. Margo’s eyes flicked down at her and then back to Kady, steeling her gaze for what she was about to say next; making sure that both Kady and Julia knew how completely serious Margo was about this, “Ours is real.”

Julia, whose eyes had fallen to her lap, where she was twiddling with the hem of her shirt in newfound boredom, looked at Margo with wide eyes; her head shooting up so quickly that she felt the tell-tale twinge of having nearly pulled a muscle, “What?” Margo smirked; so small it was only really noticeable in the softening of her stare. She pushed off the desk and clicked her tongue; she didn’t want to explain it in the apartment, “Meet me outside when you’re ready,” and made her way back out the room, stopping in the door frame and turning to face them. “Don’t keep me waiting. I need you two bitches for this.”

The light from Julia’s window illuminated Margo in the golden-red glow of the setting sun; with the light and shadow sculpting the lines of her face in a high-contrast haziness that made her look otherworldly. She jutted her chin in the direction of where she had dropped the bag, “Wear something nice.” And then, with the shadows on her face dancing to suggest more of a smirk than before, she turned on her heel and disappeared from sight.

Kady and Julia looked at each other for a long moment before rushing to get ready; digging through the bag to find outfits similar to Margo’s which, after some squabbling, they divvied up and changed into. They then proceeded to race down the stairs—past a despondent Eliot seated by the island, past a confused Penny23 in the living room, past a studious Alice at the dining room table—and out the apartment door; nearly bumping into Margo, where she was waiting for them, in the process. She pressed the elevator button for all of them, and walked in as the doors opened, beckoning Kady and Julia to follow her in. Kady didn’t bother to wait for the doors to close completely before beginning her inquiry, “What exactly do you need us for, Margo?”

Julia nodded, “Yeah, what’s with the secrecy?”

“And all that Great Pumpkin shit?”

“And why the clothes?” _Because they kind of looked like off-brand Charmed ones_, but Julia wasn’t going to say that out loud.

Margo held up a hand to stop Kady and Julia’s impromptu interrogation and rubbed her temple, “Just… shut up and follow me. I’ll tell you when we get far enough from the apartment.” She looked Julia and Kady up and down, “I will say that the clothes were, in all honesty, for The Aesthetic ™.” The elevator doors opened and her heels clacked on the floor as she strode towards the apartment building’s exit, all the while muttering under her breath; “I swear, Eliot has super-hearing when it comes to—“

“—Quentin?” Julia interrupted Margo and ran ahead of her, putting her hand on the door to stop Margo from going outside. Julia’s eyes were wild, “Margo, is this about Quentin?” Her heart was beating fast in her chest at the thought of bringing Quentin back. It had been months of failed attempt after failed attempt until most of everyone had given up—but still, Julia’s hope had a difficult time waning against despair.

Margo was taken aback at the force with which Julia hit the door to keep it closed. She took a step back to look at Julia, searching her eyes and then standing tall, sure, and determined. “We’re bringing him back.” Julia’s eyes were shining with the reflection of the streetlights as they turned on outside the building, and she dropped her hand to move closer to Margo, _“How?”_

The quick clipping noise of Kady’s shoes stepping up to Julia and Margo echoed in the empty entryway, “What the fuck, man?” her voice was harsh; shock tinged with anger.

Julia pressed closer, trying to talk over Kady, “Margo, how?” Quentin was her best friend, she wanted to know what Margo knew; she wanted to _bring him back already_.

Kady huffed and looked between Julia and Margo, “We’ve been trying for almost a year, and nothing’s worked, are you out of your mind?” She was reasonably cautious, of course she was. She wouldn’t have been half the leader she was if she wasn’t. Hell, Margo had nearly dismissed the idea of bringing Quentin back via pumpkin when she had first learned of it.

Julia glared at Kady, “Kady, please—“

“—No, not until Margo tells us everything.” Her eyes were hard, “Bringing Quentin back has been beyond us for _so long_, what makes you think that the three of us and a cartoon pumpkin are up to task?” Margo settled a hand on the door handle. She would explain this, and then they would _go_. They wouldn’t waste what might be their _best chance _in months arguing over a _pumpkin_. She narrowed her eyes, “First of all, The Great Pumpkin is _real_, so just tattoo that shit on your brain right now, because I am done with the Peanuts references.”

“Margo—“

Margo kept talking, “—Secondly, Julia’s never been as juiced up as she is now, so it’s not like we’re playing with the same level of magic as we were a few months ago.” She pulled out a small post-it note from a hidden pocket in her dress, “And _finally_, I have a spell.” She smoothed out a folded edge from the paper with the pad of her thumb as she held it up as proof.

“A spell?” Kady crossed her arms over her chest, “From where?” Margo resisted rolling her eyes, _like she would be so reckless with resurrection spells_, and with as much of a matter-of-fact tone as she could muster, she told Kady, “The Fairy Queen.”

Which, judging by Kady and Julia’s reactions, wasn’t at all the answer they were expecting. Julia looked at Margo like she was crazy, her face a little paler than before, “What—“ Kady took a small step backwards, taken to a whole new level of insanity that she hadn’t been prepared to face on what was supposed to be a cozy, quiet Halloween in, and finished Julia’s sentence, “—the hell?”

Julia’s voice dipped low, “I thought she was dead?” Margo eyed the street in front of the building nervously, wary of the time, and motioned for Kady and Julia to follow her as she pushed through the doors to begin walking before answering any more questions. They hurried after her and she continued, looking both ways before power-walking across the street, “As it turns out, it’s pretty damn hard to kill a being of pure magic.” Margo looked back at them, “She’s alive. The McAllistairs on the other hand…” Margo trailed off, her tone implying that the McAllistairs might have gotten their just-desserts, and looked back ahead as she turned a corner.

Kady’s stride was long, and she was almost beside Margo, save for the opposing current of stubborn pedestrians pushing her back into Julia despite her best efforts to elbow past them, “How come we didn’t know about this?” Margo snorted; a surprisingly loud sound against the bustle of people and traffic, “Really?” she stopped at a crosswalk and faced them again, “Okay, take your pick; memory wipe, The Monster, The Binder, Everett, the hedge witches—“ she counted each reason off on her impeccably-manicured fingers.

“—Okay, we get it.” Julia cut Margo’s smart retort and pointed behind her to indicate they were allowed to cross, “How’d you find out about The Fairy Queen?” They sped down another block to try and beat the next light as Margo replied, “Fen’s been sending bunnies.” She sighed, “Apparently she and the Fairies have forged an alliance.”

Kady shouldered a man in order to pull Julia, who had fallen a little behind, up to her level, “And Eliot…?” Margo shook her head, “Eliot doesn’t know about the spell. He knows everything else, but… you’ve seen him.” She paused. They _had_ seen him. He had never looked so lifeless; watching television mindlessly day-in and day-out, doing everything he was supposed to be doing and still nothing at all.

Julia spoke up; breaking the silence, “Show us the spell.”

Margo walked backwards for a couple of steps; just long enough to hand over the post-it note to Julia, which was intercepted by Kady; who snatched it out of Margo’s hand and read it over while not slowing down her fast-paced walking. She turned the post-it note over to make sure nothing was written on the other side, and then looked at the back of Margo’s head in surprise. “Holy shit Margo, this spell is so weird.” Julia took the opportunity to grab the paper out of Kady’s hand.

Margo waved her hand dismissively, “Yeah, well, they say art imitates life and vice versa.” They quickly crossed another street, and almost tripped over a costume-clad dog walker. Margo ignored the middle finger the dog walker flipped at them and continued, “It’s magic, of course it’s going to end up being what we least expect.” She stopped at the end of a block and looked at Kady and Julia anxiously, as if she was tired of answering questions and itching to just _cast the spell already_. Her chest was moving a little faster than usual, betraying her perpetually-cool exterior as she spoke to incite forward momentum, “Pumpkin?”

Julia looked up from the post-it note and searched Margo’s face, “Quentin;” _pumpkin meant Quentin. Getting the pumpkin meant getting Quentin. _Margo gave a single nod, “Well, yeah, that goes without saying,” she bit her lip, “but, just get your cauldrons ready to roast a squash in the _highly unlikely chance _that shit goes sideways.”

“_Highly unlikely__?” _Kady piped up from beside Julia,_ “_Margo, the entirety of this spell is just standing in a pumpkin patch and _waiting_.”

Margo scowled, “Not _technically._”

Kady rolled her eyes, “Okay, yeah, whatever, we stand in an empty field and say, _I shit you not, _bibbidi-bobbidi-boo—” She paused to let the absurdity of the situation sink in before finishing her sentence, “—and _then_ we just... wait.” She looked between Margo and Julia; attempting to be the voice of reason against even her own traitorous optimism. “We don’t even know if the pumpkin is there, we’re just hoping it is.”

Margo took the spell back from Julia and tucked it back into the pocket of her dress, “The Great Pumpkin isn’t any _specific_ pumpkin, The Great Pumpkin is the spell itself,” clearing up the confusion that Kady, and probably Julia, had been operating under the impression of.

A slow, shit-eating grin spread across Julia’s face, “So…”

Margo shook her head, “Don’t—“

Julia pressed on with glee, “Every pumpkin could be The Great Pumpkin?” Kady pressed her palm to her forehead, her emotions a mess of amusement and excitement and frustration and stress, “_Fuck._ This is so stupid.”

Margo put her foot down hard on the pavement determinedly to get Kady and Julia’s attention, “It’s only stupid if it doesn’t work, and this _will_ work, do you hear me?” They nodded slowly and obediently and hopefully. Margo lifted her chin to look down at them critically, “Do you trust me?” Julia and Kady nodded again, and Margo cleared her throat with satisfaction. She looked away from them, “Great, now let’s break into Central Park.”

With significantly more cooperation between the three of them than before, they turned to walk around the gated perimeter of the park, finding a fairly-well shrouded portion and quickly tutting to pass through the gate. From there, they walked until they found as secluded a patch of field as they could and stood there, chanting the words of the spell like the weirdest fairy-godmother cult gathering imaginable, until a small blade of grass before them grew tall into a stem, which grew thick into a vine with a small, orange bulb on the end, which grew out into a pumpkin, which _kept growing_ until the three of them were forced to back away and let the magic work on its own.

When the pumpkin was roughly the size of a small gazebo, it stopped growing, and Julia, Margo, and Kady watched it; waiting for something to happen while being mildly worried someone might walk in on what they were doing. How the fuck were they supposed to explain away a _giant pumpkin_ in the middle of Central Park—after-hours, no less—which might contain their resurrected friend, because, of course that’s how the concept of conquering death worked; pumpkins. _Insert awkward joke about pumpkin seeds being beneficial for male virility_.

_CRACK!_ A large fault line appeared in the middle of the giant pumpkin and Julia grabbed Margo and Kady’s hands with her own as they all held their breath to see what was going on.

_CRACK! _Another line of breakage.

_SNAP! _

_THUD! _A large piece of pumpkin slowly fell off the side, creaking on its way down. More pieces followed the first until the pumpkin was almost completely destroyed, with a large hole like a doorway that had its door ripped out of the wall while still locked; like the Hulk had miscalculated the force needed to open a door. The insides of the pumpkin were dark, but the three women could still see something stirring within the pumpkin’s guts.

A small voice floated out of the belly of the gourd, a little hoarse and thick and groggy, “What the—?”

Julia’s face broke out into teary-eyed joy. Margo let go of Julia’s hand to take a step forward and squint into the darkness, widening her eyes at what she saw, “Holy shit.” A hand shot out to hold the outside of the pumpkin and a body came into view—_Quentin_—wading through gooey, orange bits and beige seeds.

Quentin looked at them in confusion and apprehension, “Um, guys?” he coughed a little and stepped out of the pumpkin, shaking pulp off of shiny, iridescent, silvery dress shoes. He looked down at himself, “What’s going on?” and then lifted his gaze back to Julia, Kady, and Margo, “And why am I dressed like a Disney prince?” His legs were covered in equally silvery, tight pants with golden, rope-like trim and embellishment. His shirt was sheer and cornflower blue, made of tulle that had been closely-wrapped to his torso, with fluttery balloon sleeves; the layers of tulle were like watercolor and were dappled with tiny, crystal stars. His hair was lose and shiny around his face, and nothing about him seemed to have been affected by the fact that he had burst to life from within a pumpkin.

Kady circled Quentin inspecting him, “What do you know? It fucking worked.” Julia rushed forward to grab Quentin by the shoulders and hug him protectively as tears streamed down her face, “Of course it fucking worked.”

Quentin’s arms wrapped around Julia instinctively, although his brows furrowed in confusion as he continued processing his surroundings, “Why are you dressed like—is it? Halloween?” his eyes darted around the park, “Are we? Am I?” and he saw the shell of a giant pumpkin behind him, “Is that a pumpkin?” He looked over Julia’s shoulder at Margo, “Did I just come out of a pumpkin?”

Margo shrugged and smiled a watery smile before rushing to hug him and trapping Julia between them in the process, “Birth of Venus, bitch.”

Quentin turned to Kady, who was still standing off to the side, “What happened? Am I—?” His voice broke, too nervous to say it out loud, too scared that saying it out loud might break the illusion. Kady nodded kindly, “You’re here, Coldwater.” She chuckled breathily, “You’re alive.”

Quentin felt a lump rise in his throat with relief and his eyes fell shut as he dropped his head on top of Julia and Margo’s. “_Thank fuck._” Julia’s laugh shook their little hug-pile and Quentin’s cheeks went warm. “I mean...” he sniffed, “…thanks guys. I, uh. Thanks.” He hugged Julia tighter to him and pushed his head more towards Margo, who reached out to Kady to bring her into the group, holding her hand in a white-knuckled grip and addressing Quentin, “Just don’t pull crap like that anymore.”

“Um, I—I promise. I’ll try.” _He really would try. He really wanted to be alive. He loved them so much._

“And we’re sorry.”

Margo’s soft apology startled him, “Sorry?” he stood up straight against them, _was something wrong?_ “For—for what? Is… is it Eliot?” _Oh, that’s right. Being alive also meant occasionally falling into panic spirals. _“Is he okay?” Although, a panic spiral wasn’t exactly unwarranted, considering all the shit the questers had gone through to save Eliot. If Quentin had been brought back to life just to put out another fire without getting a chance to eat a cookie or something first, he was going to cry, and that was a threat. He looked around for Eliot, but only Julia, Kady, and Margo were in the park with him. Where _was _Eliot? “Why isn’t he here?”

Julia pulled away to look at him, and moved her hands to his shoulders to calm him down. He hadn’t realized he had started hyperventilating. “No, Q—_Q_, El’s fine.” Quentin relaxed a little and Julia bit her lip, breaking eye contact and looking down sheepishly, “We’re sorry that we didn’t… do more. Just… we should have taken a minute to check in with you, Q.”

Quentin slumped forward a little. “Oh.” He hadn’t been expecting an apology, he didn’t even really think that he deserved an apology, but they were… apologizing… to him. For not helping. Which… was ridiculous, they were all so busy with The Monster, and— “It’s… you guys don’t have t—“

Julia shook her head at him, “No, Q, we do.” Margo nodded, “We really do”

Julia took his face in her hands and thumbed away the tears that had started falling down his face, “We love you, Q, and we’re sorry.” Quentin took in a few ragged breaths and let his eyes close again, letting the feeling of warmth and family and life seep in through his best friends’ love for him. “I love you too,” he mumbled; garbled and wet and small from being overwrought with emotion. _He loved his friends so much. He had missed them so much._

Quentin felt Margo play with the hair on the nape of his neck and he opened his eyes to look at her. She stared at him, steady and sure and sweet, before lifting the hem of her sleeve to wipe his face gently. He must have looked like a mess, all red and blotchy and snotty, but she just smiled knowingly at him and asked, “You ready to go home?” _Home._ Home was the people he loved, and the people who loved him. And, for all his thoughts and feelings and bubbling joy and swirling nerves, all Quentin could do was nod._ Yes. Yes. He was ready to go home._

***


End file.
